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AP Human Geography
Summer Enjoyment
As a student entering into AP Human Geography you are required to complete the three
assignments below this summer. Also, more importantly, enjoy your last summer of high school.
Part I:
Read and take notes or annotate the following text:
Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs and Steel. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1997.
There will be an assessment after school starts that will be one of the first grades of the quarter
based on the text. (You may use your notes or annotated text during the assessment if you wish.
Part II:
Take a look at the 5 Themes of Geography on the pages that follow.
Create a packet where you address each question or statement that is highlighted in bold. Please
provide written and, when appropriate, visual support for your answers.
A copy of the summer work can be found at the following website, if you would like to
download the document and add your answers within. (It is entitled: Mr. Monaco’s APHG
Summer Assignment) http://monacohistory.weebly.com/aphg.html
Part III:
Pick any country in the world that interests you and create a document where you apply the
5 themes of Geography towards understanding it. As with Part II, this may be presented in
writing and, when appropriate, with visual examples.
Give examples of the topics below highlighted in bold for the country that you picked. (Please
make the examples different than the answers that you may have used for Part II of the summer
work.)
Five Themes of Geography:
1. Location:
Relative location
Absolute location
2. Human-Environmental Interaction:
Humans adapt to the environment
Humans modify the environment
Humans depend on the environment
3.Regions:
Formal (uniform)
Functional (nodal)
Vernacular (perceptual)
4. Place:
Human/Cultural Characteristics
Physical Characteristics
5. Movement:
People
Goods
Ideas
5 Themes of Geography
Location, Human/Environmental Interactions, Regions, Place, Movement
A study of Geography begins with knowing where things are located on a
map. But more important, it requires an understanding of why things are located in
particular places, and how those places influence our lives. By using these 5 themes as a
basis for understanding geographic information, we can gain a better appreciation of
cultural and environmental changes around the world.
The first three themes correspond to Pattison's four traditions. Location,
human/environmental interactions, and regions continue to anchor the study of
geography. Two other themes, place and movement, were added in 1986 by the
National Geographic society developed by the Geography Education National
implementation Project (GENIP). All places on earth have distinguishing human and
physical characteristics. Movement refers to the mobility of people, goods, and ideas.
Location (position on Earth’s surface)
Distribution – various locations of a collection of people or objects
Ways to indicate location (position):
1)
Maps: best way to show location and demonstrate insights gained through spatial
analysis
2)
Place-name: a name given to a portion of the Earth’s surface Give a place name
and the history behind how it got its name.
3)
Site: physical characteristics of a place; climate, water sources, topography, soil,
vegetation, latitude, and elevation Describe a site.
4)
Absolute location: latitude and longitude (parallels and meridians), mathematical
measurements mainly useful in determining exact distances and direction (maps) Give
an example of the Absolute Location of a place.
5)
Relative location: location of a place relative to other places (situation), valuable
way to indicate location for two reasons:
a)
Finding an unfamiliar place - by comparing its location with a familiar one
(“Miami – 35 miles northwest of Cincinnati”) Give your own example.
b)
Centrality, understanding its importance (Chicago – hub of sea & air
transportation, close to four other states; Singapore – accessible to other countries in
Southeast Asia) Give your own example.
6)
Distribution: arrangement of something across Earth’s surface
a)
Density – frequency with which something occurs in an area. Arithmetic density
– total number of objects (people) in an area. Physiologic density – number of people per
unit area of agriculturally productive land. Give an example of Arithmetic and
Physiologic density.
b)
Concentration – extent of a feature’s spread over an area. Clustered – relatively
close. Dispersed – relatively far apart. Give an example of both a clustered and a
dispersed concentration that can be found here in Guilford.
c)
Pattern – geometric arrangement of objects.
Human/Environmental Interactions (Cultural ecology - relations
between cultures and environment)
1)
Cultural landscape – includes all human-induced changes that involve the
surface and the biosphere. Carl Sauer: “… the forms superimposed on the physical
landscape by the activities of man.” Describe an example of a human-induced
change that has impacted the surface and biosphere of a place.
2)
Environmental Determinism – human behavior, individually and collectively,
is strongly affected by, and even controlled or determined by the environment
Explain where you believe you have seen an example of this.
3)
Possibilism – the natural environment merely serves to limit the range of
choices available to a culture Give an example of where you see this limit exist.
4)
Environmental Modification – positive and negative environmental alterations
Give one positive and one negative example of Environmental Modification.
Regions (areas of unique characteristics, ways of organizing people
geographically)
1)
Distinctive characteristics:
a)
area: defined spatial extent
b)
location: lie somewhere on Earth’s surface
c)
boundaries: sometimes evident on the ground, often based on specifically
chosen criteria
d) other: cultural (language, religion), economic (agriculture, industry),
physical (climate, vegetation) Give an example of where you see a boundary
formed because of: a. language, b. religion, c. agriculture, d. industry,
e. climate, f. vegetation
2)
Three types of regions:
a)
Formal – (a.k.a. uniform, homogeneous), visible and measurable
homogeneity (link to scale and detail) Give an example of a Formal Region.
b)
Functional – product of interactions, and movement of various kinds,
usually characterized by a core and hinterland (e.g. a city and its surrounding
suburbs) Give an example of a Functional Region.
c)
Perceptual – (a.k.a. vernacular), primarily in the minds of people (e.g.
Sunbelt) Give an example of a Perceptual Region.
3)
Regions can be seen in a hierarchy (vertical order, scale), (e.g. Ft. Lauderdale –
Broward County – Florida – Southeastern US …)
Place (associations among phenomena in an area)
(No examples needed for this part)
1)
Culture – people’s lifestyles, values, beliefs, and traits
a)
What people care about: language, religion, ethnicity
b)
What people take care of: 1) daily necessities of survival (food, clothing,
shelter) and 2) leisure activities (artistic expressions, recreation)
c)
Cultural institutions: political institutions (a country, its laws and rights)
2)
Components of culture:
a)
Culture region – the area within which a particular culture system prevails
(dress, building styles, farms and fields, material manifestations,…)
b)
Culture trait – a single attribute of culture
c)
Culture complex – a discrete combination of traits
d) Culture system – grouping of certain complexes, may be based on ethnicity,
language, religion,…
e)
Culture realm – an assemblage of culture (or geographic) regions, the most
highly generalized regionalization of culture and geography (e.g. sub-Saharan
Africa)
3)
Physical Processes – environmental processes, which explain the distribution
of human activities
a)
Climate – long-term average weather condition at a particular
location. Vladimir Koppen’s five main climate regions (expresses humans’
limited tolerance for extreme temperature and precipitation levels)
b)
Vegetation – plant life.
c)
Soil – the material that forms Earth’s surface, in the thin interface between
the air and the rocks. Erosion and the depletion of nutrients are two basic
problems concerning the destruction of the soil.
d) Landforms – Earth’s surface features (geomorphology), limited population
near poles and at high altitudes
Movement (interconnections between areas)
1)
Culture Hearths – sources of civilization from which an idea, innovation, or
ideology originates (e.g. Mesopotamia, Nile Valley), viewed in the context of time
as well as space Give an example of a Cultural Hearth.
2)
Cultural diffusion – spread of an innovation, or ideology from its source area
to another culture
a)
Expansion diffusion – an innovation, or ideology develops in a source area
and remains strong there while also spreading outward
1)
Contagious diffusion – nearly all adjacent individuals are affected (e.g.
spread of Islam, disease) Give an example of Contagious Diffusion.
2)
Hierarchical diffusion – the main channel of diffusion some segment of
those who are susceptible to (or adopting) what is being diffused Give an
example of Hierarchical Diffusion.
3)
Stimulus diffusion – spread of an underlying principle (e.g. idea of
industrialization) Give an example of Stimulus Diffusion.
b)
Relocation diffusion – spread of an innovation, or ideology through
physical movement of individuals Give an example of Relocation Diffusion.
1)
Migrant diffusion – when an innovation originates somewhere and
enjoys strong-but brief-adoption, loses strength at origin by the time it
reaches another area (e.g. mild pandemics)
2)
Acculturation – when a culture is substantially changed through
interaction with another culture Give an example of Acculturation.
3)
Transculturation – a near equal exchange between culture complexes
Give an example of Transculturation.
c)
Forces that work against diffusion:
1)
Time-distance decay – the longer and farther it has to go, the less likely
it will get there What is something in society that exhibits Time-distance
Decay?
2)
Cultural barriers – prevailing attitudes or taboos What is one Cultural
Barrier that you see in the United States?